Page 38 of Sweetling
“Stop it!”
Tears streamed down Molly’s face as she turned in circles in the center of her room. The house creaked, the shingles rattling.
Molly grabbed for her nearest bag and began shoving clothes into it.
She had to get out. Whatever this was, whatever spoke to her, it was evil. Wrong. Something waswrongwith this place, with everything, and she needed—
Molly skidded to a stop before the window.
In the haze of dusk, she watched a large form skirt the edge of the forest.
Bellarand.
The unicorn patrolled the estate, his red eyes casting a glow in the growing darkness.
Molly dropped to the ground when she thought his head swung toward her window. Clutching the bag to her chest, she crammed herself into a corner, putting her back to the wall.
Come out, come out, come play,the voice taunted.
Trapped. Molly was trapped, in a haunted house that spoke, with a dead fae and murderous unicorn. Without food.
Another whimper escaped her, and Molly buried her head in her hands. “No, no, no,” she groaned.
Oh, yes.
9
In the long sleep, he dreamt of Molly.
The long sleep was an odd sort of place, outside of temporality, full of wisps of memory and tendrils of ideas. Dreams usually played no part, a fae mind so closed off and shut down that there was little happening beyond the barest of senses.
Still, through the purple clouds and knitted hopes, Allarion dreamed of her, or if not dreamed then thought of. Dreamed in the allusive sense—dreamed of her lying beside him in this big bed, the silk sheets gathered at her waist. He dreamed of what she would feel like, tucked into his side, safe and warm and just where she belonged.
What would it be to be held in her arms? To feel the weight of her limbs and beat of her human heart? What would the puff of her breath feel like against his skin, or the fine silk of her hair through his fingers?
What would it feel like to slide into the wet heat of her body, to be welcomed inside her, a needy moan on her lips?
He longed to know, so desperately, the ache found him even in the long sleep.
He’d never be free of her now, if she haunted even his sleep.
Good. He never wanted to be free of her.
Allarion woke from his long sleep refreshed—and with a stiff cock. The sight was almost amusing, though the fierce, hard ache tempered any humor. It’d been a long while since he’d woken with a demanding cock, and his hand was out of practice.
It took several exploratory pumps to get the right rhythm and grip, but once he did, it wasn’t long before he spilled into his own hand.
He was left with an empty sort of relief—not satisfaction, just the absence of immediate discomfort.
It’s not her.
Indeed not. And although he’d had the privilege of her company over the past days, he feared he was still quite a ways from earning a place as her bedfellow. The thought of how, even after days at Scarborough, she still looked at him askance, wariness lining her eyes, cooled any of the residual ardor lingering in his blood.
Hauling himself from the bed, Allarion cleaned himself up and slipped into his attire for the day. Although it was far less than he’d wear in the faelands, forgoing a tunic or coat to cover his shirtsleeves, he was growing more comfortable with the less formal customs of everyday human life. Even the Darrows didn’t stand on ceremony that often.
And, it’s my own house. I should dress as I like.
Feeling more at ease in his informal layers of clothing, like a second skin, he swept from his chamber. On the narrow table he’d placed by his door, he found the vase and bouquet he’d asked the house to make up before taking his long sleep. It pleased him to see the bursting yellow sunflowers, and even more to leave it before her door.
